The cost of climate change

There has been a lot of outrage and backpedaling from political parties in B.C. about the B.C. carbon tax.

The tax was created by the B.C. Liberals in 2008 and was considered, at the time, to be an innovative, market-based encouragement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The outrage is centred on the cost to taxpayers. It is a nonsense argument, and pure political theatre.

Before addressing that, let’s talk about some of the actual costs of climate change that the carbon tax is designed to address.

Climate change affects the cost of, and access to, healthy food. Increasingly unstable weather has already mostly destroyed the 2024 cherry, apricot and peach harvests in the Okanagan. Market gardens have also been affected by unstable weather this year. We are in a drought. Precipitation was 39% of normal in 2023 in Kelowna and Vernon did not fare much better. The record warm past winter and long heat wave of this July exacerbated the drought. Hay has been in short supply for animal feed. These factors all contribute to rising food costs.

Forest fires and the accompanying smoke added to everyone’s stress level during recent summers. Smoke is unpleasant and restricts outdoor activities. There is also the summer-long stress of the potential for serious local wildfires.

In the long term, smoke affects our respiratory health, especially that of the poor, the aged and those with respiratory issues. Respiratory health issues due to the LNG industry in northeastern B.C., a major contributor to climate change, are leading to a health care crisis in that region, according to the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.

Fires will also directly affect our economic outlook in other ways in the Okanagan. As more extreme weather events occur, insurance rates are climbing. In B.C. last year, they increased by 18%, the highest in the country. More weather-related disruptions are also affecting supply chains, which again is reflected by higher prices.

Fruit growers, the wine industry and tourism all suffer from drought, fires, floods and smoke, and the government has to support them.

In August, the B.C. government announced $70 million for a replanting program for fruit growers, as well as an increase in the provincial AgriStability program. Tourists are increasingly staying away from B.C. in the summer, with fires and heat waves in the news. That creates a struggle for many B.C. tourism-dependent industries.

Dealing with the increasing level of fires has meant wildfire suppression is becoming expensive. The province spent $1.1 billion in 2023, another record fire year, after a record the previous year.

The new B.C. Disaster Resilience and Innovation Fund is providing $15 million this year and $25 million next year. That funding is desperately needed and will almost certainly grow larger.

So, what about the costs and effectiveness of the carbon tax in comparison with these other growing costs of climate change? In terms of efficacy, the Canadian Climate Institute estimated in March the carbon tax, in its various versions across Canada, will be responsible for as much as 50% in avoided greenhouse gas emissions across Canada by 2030.

Three quarters of the reduction is from the industrial carbon tax and one quarter is from the consumer version. Currently, the carbon tax in B.C. is 18 cents per litre of gasoline and 15 cents per cubic meter of natural gas. The rebates to a single person, depending on income, can be as much as $447 per year, more than double what they received in 2022. A family of four now receives as much as $893.50 per year. Notably, those rebates are bundled with the GST rebate and delivered via the federal government, which can be confusing.

For most low-income Canadians, the carbon tax results in a net benefit, while more affluent Canadians pay the relatively minor costs of the carbon tax.—and it is working.

Nobody likes to pay taxes but we are complaining about pennies while the big costs, ones we are paying and will increasingly pay, are being largely ignored. It is true that regardless of what Canada does in fighting climate change, we cannot succeed alone.

But as a wealthy country, we absolutely need to step up and be a role model, not a miser looking only at the smaller more obvious costs, as some politicians would have us do.

Eli Pivnick is a former Agriculture Canada research scientist and high school teacher, and a member of Climate Action Now! North Okanagan.